This is St Catherine’s Oratory, better known as the “Pepperpot”. It’s a medieval lighthouse first lit way back in 1328.

As for the serene part though, this was most definitely NOT. To reach said lighthouse was probably only about a mile from the car park, but the car park was at the bottom of the downs, and the pepperpot at the top of the downs. The climb must have easily been 45° !!, or at least that’s what my knees were telling me.. If that wasn’t bad enough though, this particular evening was a tad bit breezy… Breezy enough that I had to physically hang on to my tripod to prevent it blowing away whilst taking the shots.. I kid you not, and no more than a few miles from here they recorded 82mph gusts later that night.. It was so strong that my youngest WAS actually blown clean over.. Not that I laughed at all… Strangely enough though, she wasn’t too keen on my holding on the the cords of her jacket, and flying her down the hill like a kite !!.. No pleasing some kids !!.. I thought they all loved kite flying !!..

A shot from the end of a rather pleasant day out with friends… although one of them got in to all sorts of mischief. More on that in another post. Spent the day investigating some unused churches around the area, and ended up here for a few rather nice landscapey type shots… Not entirely sure about this one, as I do hate the sun being burnt out like that, but I loved the light it was casting across the scene… Note to self, must get myself a graduated ND filter mefinks.. along with all the other things I want…

So yesterday I managed to blow the dust off, and get out with my camera for the first time this year… and very quickly realise the reason why I HAVEN’T been out with my camera this year… It was COLD !!..

Took this one with my real camera, but also decided to test the capabilities of my iPhone too while my blood was slowly crystallizing… and I have to confess, for a camera phone it’s pretty iMazing to say the least… I’ve been impressed with it already on a number of occasions, but last nights picture almost made me put my real camera away !!.. Only almost though, as it will never compete with a Canon obviously.. :)

If you’re on Instagram, then you can find it / me by searching for funkyslug… Or here’s a link to it for those who aren’t on Instagram… http://instagr.am/p/j-hff/

More from our recent holiday in the New Forest… oh, and a touch more about the ever so friendly wildlife too…

So you may recall that I mentioned the free roaming New Forest Ponies and Donkeys in my “And We’re Back” post, and how they are even free to roam in to your cottage if you leave the door open… Well as a bonus, here’s a shot of said Pony… The big one that is, and not the smaller one you see in the background… (more…)

Well here are my entries for the Rainbow Challenge… Fortunately due to a fairly pleasant summer most of the shots are all entirely new and “kinda” summery… but I had to throw a couple of old favourites in there too..

Red – and I have to confess to struggling to find any decent red shots, so you’ll have to make do with a nice little red Ferrari Dino 246 from our summer hols… Not mine unfortunately, but it was in Beaulieu Motor Museum that we visited during our summer hols, so it counts… Oh, and one of those red things from the garden too (not my garden though)…

Funky Slug Photo’s on Flickr

For an alternative to the photography I have posted here, please also check out my Flickr website, where I go under the pseudonym of Funky Slug. Here you can preview a much larger selection of my work.